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Our beloved Condoleezza Rice is in Tripoli...no...that's not a typo. She's in Libya on a "diplomatic" visit to meet and talk with Moammar Gaddafi today to hail the West's reconciliation with the one-time pariah state, becoming the first US Secretary of State to visit in half a century. Hopefully Gaddafi won't have one of his temper tantrums while Rice is chatting him up.
Libya and it's leader Gaddafi, dubbed a "mad dog" by President Ronald Reagan, was forced further into isolation after they claimed responsibility for the Pan-Am bombing over Lockerbie in 1988 which killed 259 people.
But I guess everyone deserves a second chance, right? And as a show of "good faith" Gaddafi in 2003 denounced and discontinued Libya's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs....(wonder where they're hiding 'em)
The meeting should go well. It appears that Gadaffi is quite smitten and impressed with "Leezza" as he affectionately calls her. He recently said ...."I love her very much. I admire her, and I'm proud of her because she's a black woman of African origin."
I can't believe the U.S. government is going to invest a dime into this country. But it's not about what I think. It's about leverage....in the supply or acquisition of more and more oil!
Oh, but that's nothing new. We've been one of Libya's best customers for years. The United States imported an average of 85,500 barrels per day of Libyan oil in 2006, equivalent to about seven percent of Libyan petroleum exports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
This is a country where freedoms that we enjoy on a daily basis would likely end in a Libyan's imprisonment or death! Fath Eljahmi is an imprisoned Libyan, who is considered Libya's "most prominent democratic dissident" and has received significant international attention.
He was arrested in October 2002 and sentenced to five years in prison for stating at a 'People's Conference' in Tripoli that reform in Libya would require a constitution, free speech and democracy. He was briefly released that month at the request of Senator Joe Biden,and then re-imprisoned after calling for democratization of Libya in a television interview. In early 2004 he, his wife, and his eldest son were taken into custody. Eljahmi still remains imprisoned.
The Libyan regime no longer bothers to even rhetorically embrace reform. On Nov. 3, Libya's ambassador in Washington, Ali Aujali, made no apologies about Fathi's imprisonment. He told Taqrir Washington, an online Arabic news forum: "Anyone who breaks the law would be arrested. . . . Unlike the West, our Islamic and Arabic traditions prohibit us from insulting our leaders." While Gaddafi describes himself to Western diplomats as a secular dike against an Islamist flood, in Libya he embraces Islamism and targets secular and liberal reformers.
Our government's suggestion to the Libyan activists opposed to Gaddafi...APOLOGIZE!
It is ironic and heartbreaking that the Bush administration says it cares for freedom, yet the State Department quietly suggests that courageous reformers should stage "apologies" to dictators.
In spite of the economic benefit for Libya Gaddafi emphasized that Libya was not desperate for American friendship; mindful perhaps of his important economic relations with Russia and China, adding: "All we want is to be left alone."
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